GUN and life-threatening crime is down by more than a third in Cheshire whilst crime in general has also dropped.

Latest figures released by the Cheshire Police Authority show there was a 35.6% reduction in shootings and life-threatening crimes last year compared to the previous year.

Altogether, in the 12 months leading up to March there were 74 such incidents. This figure includes the daylight gun attack in Crewe’s West End in February when a man wearing a motorcycle helmet fired a shotgun at two men in a car on Oxford Street.

Overall, total crime in the county is down by 11.7% with 78,948 crimes recorded last year.

Peter Nurse, chairman of the Cheshire Police Authority, said: “This is excellent news. When I and my colleagues in the authority talk and listen to people, more are saying that they also feel safer as they go about their business.”

All recorded figures including burglary, vehicle crime, violent crime and criminal damage saw a fall last year compared to the previous year.

There was also, however, a drop in the number of offences brought to justice. This has fallen by 6.7% on the previous year.

A police spokesman denied this meant there had been a dramatic fall in the detection rate. She said on occasion crimes were detected but the Crown Prosecution Service may not pursue the case.

“Sometimes, with young people for example, they have been caught but rather than give them a criminal record they actually have a case conference etc so you could say it’s detected but it couldn’t be counted as an offender brought to justice,” she said.

Mr Nurse added: “Whilst crime has fallen again, the focus is on increasing the number of offenders brought to justice and we have set tough targets for the Chief Constable this year.”

The figures also revealed that 93.1% of 999 calls were answered within 10 seconds – a 1.2% increase on last year.